Recording Tips and Techniques

Top 12 Most Popular DAWs (You Voted For)

April 2, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) are the center of most music studios. It’s where we spend the most time recording, editing, arranging, mixing and mastering audio. So which is the most popular DAW?

What is the best DAW? Most modern DAWs can do everything the others are capable of with varying degrees of success. Certain DAWs are more specialized in certain areas than others of course. Ableton Live was the overall winner with over 20% which is incredible considering it was first released back in 2001. But as a company, Apple just eclipsed Ableton if you add Logic Pro and GarageBand together.

Gear of the Year 2018: Product of the Year (Hardware/Software)

April 1, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

The winner for hardware is the Universal Audio Arrow. Arrow is a simple interface, on the face of it, but does offer two unison mic preamps and, when combined with the aforementioned onboard plug-ins (Arrow ships with a bundle of 11), you get an exceptional signal chain.

While the winner for software is the Leapwing Audio Dynone. Part of DynOne’s appeal is that it employs both powerful multi-band compression and more subtle parallel compression. DynOne is that it can be equally as useful in both the mixing and mastering processes, but it really comes back to the speed of use.

6 of the Best: Software Beat Makers (2018)

March 29, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

There are now more ways to make beats in and out of your DAW than ever before. Here’s a look at the 6 of the best and most varied ways to make beats in software.

Sample Magic is best known for its huge range of sample collections. Klip represents the best of those collections – some 1000 hits and loops from 40 titles – all controlled, sequenced, tuned and filtered within one Kontakt instrument. Toontrack features no less than 230GB of drums sounds recorded in the incredible Galaxy Studios by legendary engineer George Massenburg so you know you’re getting great content.

ADAM Audio Unleash Their T5V and T7V Monitors

March 27, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

The T series of nearfield monitors are designed specifically for engineers, sound designers, DJs, and musicians – just about everyone who works professionally with recording or music production workflows.

Accommodating a 5” and 7” woofer respectively, both the T5V and the T7V profit from the latest audio technology. The HPS waveguide projects sound with high accuracy and precision, while the newly developed U-ART tweeter works to prevent hearing fatigue during long studio sessions. Thanks to their wide sweet-spot and compact footprint, both studio monitors are outstandingly suited to smaller production spaces in the music, audio post, and broadcast industries.

Read more about this here: https://www.musictech.net/news/adam-audio-t5v-t7v-2/

How to De-Ess Vocals: Sibilance De-Esser Plugin Tutorial

March 26, 2019 by Elaine Sy Leave a Comment

Mix engineer Dave Darlington shows how he likes to de-ess vocals using the Waves Sibilance plugin. De-essers take away the harsh S, Sh, and T sounds in a voice that sounds irritating and, well, just plain bad.

We need some of those sounds to be able to understand the lyrics and the content. If you totally remove too much of the audio where sibilance lives (between 4KHz and 8Khz on the frequency scale), that sound bad also. It makes the voice sound like it’s lisping. But we don’t want an overabundance of that frequncy either, because especially at low volumes, those non-musical sounds can poke through a mix and be very distracting. The Sibilance plugin separates the sibilance sounds from the rest of the vocal signal. That makes Sibilance especially surgical when it comes to de-essing vocals.

Dave Darlington shows how to do this in his post at waves.com.